


Are They Together or Not?

by NovemberSuns



Series: What Even? [1]
Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, M/M, kun and ten are grad students, the rest are undergrads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21847630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovemberSuns/pseuds/NovemberSuns
Summary: Yangyang entered his first year of college with a few clear goals in mind.He gets through his list faster than he thought he would. Luckily for Yangyang, when one door closes, another one opens.No one seems to know exactly what Kun and Ten’s relationship is. Yangyang is determined to find out.Just another college!AU, because there just aren’t enough of those already
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun
Series: What Even? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586929
Comments: 7
Kudos: 172





	Are They Together or Not?

**Author's Note:**

> un-beta'd and written at like 2AM
> 
> please don't repost

Yangyang enters his first year of college with a few clear goals in mind:

1) He is going to pull at least one prank on his roommate, whoever he happens to be.

2) He is going to serenade at least one person in the middle of the night on his violin.

3) He is going to join at least one club so that his sister doesn’t bug him about it.

The first one doesn’t go quite to plan; in fact, it goes even better than he had planned. As it turned out, his roommate Chenle entered his first year of college with the exact same plan. After they cackle over fake roaches in Yangyang’s bed and post-it notes covering every inch of Chenle’s desk, they agree to prank other people together rather than turn their tiny dorm room into a war zone. 

Besides, it's always more fun to have friends to plan pranks with. 

Their first victim is Chenle’s older cousin Kun. Kun is an exasperated engineering grad student who studies planes and wears sweater vests. After the two of them spray silly string at the man, he chases them out of his apartment with a spatula and threatens never to cook or bake for them again. The two of them giggle all the way to the lobby of the building, barely able to catch their breaths.

“You’re the best roommate ever,” Chenle declares between gasps as he tries not to laugh. “This is gonna be the best partnership ever. The best year ever.”

“Heck yeah,” Yangyang agrees, and they burst out laughing again. 

“I thought a heard that dolphin laugh from the other side of the building.”

Yangyang turns around, confused to see a short man with dark hair and round glasses smirking at them. Chenle squeals and tackles the man into a hug.

“Ten-ge!” he screeches. “I haven’t seen you in like, years.”

Ten snorts. “Yeah, because you went to that fancy boarding school and then skipped a grade, you little shit. Do I want to know why you’re dolphining in our lobby at two in the afternoon?”

Chenle throws an arm around Yangyang in a tight side hug. Yangyang grins at Ten in a way that he hopes looks innocent.

“This is my roommate, Yangyang. Yang, this is Ten! He’s one of Kun’s friends. And you just gotta go upstairs to see, ge. I promise it’s good.”

“Hi,” Yangyang greets.

“Hi back,” Ten replies. “Am I going to need to vent out the apartment?”

“Nope,” Chenle replies. 

Ten raises an eyebrow at them, but he smiles a little. “I can feel my phone buzzing in my pocket. I’m pretty sure Kun’s calling me”

Chenle grins wordlessly at Ten, and Yangyang continues to smile innocently.

“Okay, devil children. I’ll see you around if Kun doesn’t permanently ban you from our apartment.”

“Nah, I’m his favorite cousin,” Chenle dismisses breezily.

Ten snorts again. “Pretend you don’t know that. Kun doesn’t want to play favorites.”

Chenle sticks his tongue out. Ten smiles at Yangyang.

“Well, it was to meet you Yangyang. Time to go laugh at whatever you did to Kun.”

As it turned out, Kun didn’t stay mad for long. By the next week, Chenle and Yangyang are invited over for what Chenle explained was some sort of Chinese student dinner gathering. Apparently, most of the students who regularly went to this event were either a part of the Chinese Student Association, the Tawainese Student Association, or the Hong Kong Student Association who missed the taste of home.

“Ten told me they all call him Kun-ba,” Chenle adds at the end of the explanation. “He’s like the dad of the Mandarin-speaking students here or something. Anyways, he promised me there’d be food, so let’s go.”

Yangyang expects three or four other people, but when Ten ushers him and Chenle into the apartment, there are at least ten other people there. A flurry of introductions follows. Sicheng is Kun and Ten’s third roommate, a junior dance major with one pointy ear and a deceptively calm face. Dejun, Hendery, and Lucas are sophomores who live two floors below. Yuqi is one of Lucas’s friends, and Tzuyu is one of Yuqi’s friends. Yangyang hears more names, like Minghao and Junhui and Yanan and Renjun and Shuhua and Jieqiong, but he starts to lose track after that. The sheer number of people is dizzying. 

Before Yangyang can wrap his mind around the fact that there were so many Chinese students at his school, Kun calls for them all to help set up and grab food. In a tussle of arms and elbows, Yangyang manages to grab a heaping plate of what looked to be very authentic Chinese food. He glances around for a place to sit. Chenle and Renjun had squished themselves into a corner to talk about the Korean elective that Chenle was taking. Yangyang considers joining them, but he doesn’t want to bother them. He’s about to give up and plop on the floor when he notices Kun waving him over to the couch. Chenle’s cousin is squished on the couch with Dejun, Ten, and Sicheng. Yangyang notes that Ten is half sitting in Kun’s lap. Is there even space for him to fit?

“How are you settling in?” Kun asks warmly after Yangyang squeezes himself next to Dejun at the end of the couch.

“Pretty good,” he answers. And it’s true. He had already accomplished goal number three by sneaking into Jeno and Jaemin’s dorm, with help from Jeno and Chenle. After loudly playing the theme from Psycho next to Jaemin’s bed at three in the morning, he was satisfied. The resulting pillow to the face and nearly broken violin was totally worth it. Sure, Jaemin complained to him for the next two lectures in their mandatory Humanities course, but it was one more thing crossed off of his list. 

He starts shoveling food into his mouth, and wow, Kun is a fantastic cook. Sure, he’d had Kun’s cookies when he and Chenle had come by to spray silly string at him, but his actual cooking is god tier.

Ten grins. “Have you heard of the ghost that haunts students in the library during finals week? If you see her, you fail all of your classes. I heard someone had to drop out last year because of it..”

Sicheng rolls his eyes. “You do this every year, Ten. Don’t listen to him, Yangyang. Just drink tons of coffee and study and you’ll pass your classes just fine.”

“I kind of hate coffee, but Jaemin said he’ll teach me the ways of the coffee masters,” Yangyang replies proudly. 

Kun stares at him in absolute horror. “Is this the Jaemin who always gets a venti iced Americano with four extra shots at the Starbucks in the student union?”

“Yeah? How do you know him?”

“I make his coffee order three times a week,” Dejun replies with equal horror. “How is he still alive?”

Yangyang shrugs. “He says anything else tastes like water to him.”

Kun looks like he’s going to have a heart attack. Ten cackles and rubs his shoulders soothingly. Yangyang notices Kun’s shoulder un-tense. One of Kun’s hands holds one of Ten’s hands on his shoulder. Ten blows Kun a kiss, but Kun wrinkles his nose in response. Interesting.

“Please don’t follow his example,” Dejun begs. His entire face has turned red and his very fantastic eyebrows are furrowed. “I get so anxious every time I see him walk in.”

“No promises,” Yangyang replies cheerfully. He would add finger guns, but he’s trying to eat and not spill anything on the couch. 

Kun and Dejun bury their faces into their hands at the same time while Ten continues to cackle. Sicheng simply surveys the group with the most serene expression Yangyang had ever seen.

After he finishes eating, a girl who he thinks is Shuhua pulls him from the couch to introduce him to the other Taiwanese students. Tzuyu and some other people are a part of this group, and they tell him about the boba fundraiser they’re planning.

Yangyang thinks that he’s going to join the Taiwanese Student Association. Last goal crossed off his list. He’s going to need some new goals. Like figuring out what’s going on between Ten and Kun.

“Are Kun and Ten dating?”

It's 3AM and both Yangyang and Chenle are trying to meet deadlines. A cup of Jaemin's devil coffee sits on Yangyang's desk, and the two of them take turns drinking it. Yangyang doesn't want to look at another diagram of a hovercraft ever again.

Chenle frowns at his question. “I don’t think so. Why?”

Yangyang stares at him in disbelief. Ever since he’d noticed how close the two older men were at the first dinner he’d been invited to, he’d started to notice other things too. Ten always seemed to be heading to the engineering department with two traveling mugs in his hand, and Kun and Ten have suspiciously matching phone charms. In fact, he’d seen Kun heading towards the Linguistics department at least twice a week with what seemed to be a whole tote bag of food. The only person any of them know who in that department was Ten. But then again, they hadn’t done anything to really suggest that they are actually together. So are they pining for each other or something? There have to be feelings there, right? Yangyang doesn’t think he’s making anything up.

“You don’t see it?” he asks Chenle incredulously. He’s starting to wonder if his roommate is blind. Or just plain sleep-deprived.

“No? They’ve always been like that?”

Yangyang huffs in frustration. Clearly, he’s going to have to ask someone else.

Hendery and Dejun are the easiest people to ask first. He already hangs out with them in the library on the regular, especially since Hendery is also an engineering student like him, and wherever Hendery goes, Dejun usually follows. At first, Yangyang had also thought that they were together as well. Then Hendery made a joke about being doubly ace, and Dejun started talking about some cute guy in his class, so that answered that question.

“Are Kun and Ten together?” he asks casually during one of their study sessions. 

Neither Hendery nor Dejun spares him a glance. Yangyang tries to figure out how many more calculus problems he still has to finish while he waits for them to answer.

“No idea,” Dejun replies after a moment. He squints at a flashcard with some weird literature term on it before continuing, “I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were though.”

“Ten bucks says they’re not together,” Hendery counters, throwing his notebook onto a pile of his other notebooks. He grabs a different notebook and opens that. “Ten’s super clingy and he overshares. If they were together we’d know by now.”

Dejun shrugs. “Eh. They’re both touchy people, but I feel like they’re more touchy with each other, you know?”

Hendery snorts as he highlights something. “We’ve ever seen them kiss.”

“Yeah, but Kun doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that likes PDA.”

The two of them continue to discuss back and forth for another ten minutes before Dejun has to leave for class. Yangyang sighs as he packed up his stuff. 

His new goal is to figure out exactly what is going on between Kun and Ten.

At the next dinner, Yangyang scrutinizes Ten and Kun to his best ability. At first, the two of them don’t sit together at all. Then the two of them go to the kitchen together. Yangyang rapidly follows, hoping to catch them. Before he can sneak off behind the pair, Dejun ambushes him and drags him away to his corner with Lucas and Hendery to discuss the newest episode of American Horror Story. Yangyang immediately gets immersed in the conversation and forgets about his mission to spy on Kun and Ten.

He asks Lucas and Yuqi next over lunch. They all happen to be buying the cheapest, shittiest sandwiches from the school’s very own cafe at the same time and decide quickly to eat together. 

“I mean...Maybe?” is Lucas’s answer. “I always thought Kun had a crush on Ten.”

“I always thought it was the other way around,” Yuqi adds. “And neither of them has dated anyone else since we’ve been here.”

The two of them stare at each other in disbelief. Yangyang stays quiet, watching them with growing interest.

“Are you sure Ten likes Kun?” Lucas asks. 

Yuqi rolls her eyes. “Um, yeah? Do you see how he looks at Kun?”

“He flirts with everyone though,” Lucas counters. “If he liked Kun don’t you think he’d stop flirting so much?”

“Well, maybe he’s trying to make Kun jealous. Did you think about that? Besides, why do you think that Kun returns his feelings?”

Lucas huffs indignantly. “Um? He cooks for Ten all the time? Whatever Ten wants to eat?”

“He cooks for everyone, that doesn’t count.”

“Yeah, but does he learn a whole new menu of food for anyone else? I asked him if he’d learn how to make bubble waffles for me and he just stared at me and said no.”

Yuqi elbows him and rolls her eyes again. “That’s because you’re a pain in the ass. Do you know how hard it is to make bubble waffles?”

“Well if Kun loved me then he would have made them for me!”

“I don’t think anyone loves you enough to make bubble waffles for you.”

“I’m telling the street vendor across my grandma’s condo about this. She confessed her undying love to me last summer.”

“That’s literally her job.”

Yangyang laughs at the offended expression on Lucas’s face as he places his hand over his heart.

“Yuqi Song, our friendship is over,” Lucas declares.

Yuqi just laughs in response to that.

Yangyang still doesn’t have a conclusion.

Yangyang thinks it is truly a stroke of luck when he spies Ten and Kun heading towards the Starbucks where Dejun works morning shifts. He tries to sneak behind the two of them, but Ten catches him. The two of them invite him to join them in bankrupting themselves by coffee. Yangyang gets sandwiched between Kun and Ten as they walk, and they ask Yangyang all sorts of questions about how he's doing. 

Kun and Ten bicker lightly during the stip, but Yangyang doesn’t find that to be conclusive evidence for or against the two of them being a couple. He doesn’t want to ask them directly yet; that is his last resort.

The three of them arrive at Starbucks with Yangyang no closer to finding out exactly what the situation between Ten and Kun is. Sicheng’s friend Jaehyun is working, and he sneaks them his employee discount. Yangyang’s eternally grateful that Chenle connection to Kun and by proxy, Kun's connections across campus have gotten him multiple discounts. He definitely won the roommate lottery.

They leave Jaehyun’s coworker finishes their drinks: Kun to his office, Ten to the gym, and Yangyang away from the two of them because his plan to spy on them was completely ruined. He tries to spot some kind of small gesture when the two say goodbye, but he does absolutely nothing. Sure, Ten blows Kun a kiss, but Ten does that to almost all his friends. Kun hugs Ten, but Kuns hugs everyone, including Yangyang when he says goodbye. Yangyang thinks that the two of them stare at each a little longer than strictly platonic friends would, but that still isn’t solid proof. 

He’s going to lose his mind. 

Sicheng is kind of a wild card. At first, he was pretty quiet, only adding comments when it was necessary. Then Yangyang got to know Sicheng better. It turns out that Sicheng is the kind of person who keeps all of his snarky comments to himself until he gets to know someone better. Then Sicheng becomes hilarious.

Yangyang feels pretty intimidated by Sicheng. He had hoped that he’d figure out the whole Kun and Ten situation without asking Sicheng. He asks everyone else he runs into on campus, from Yanan to Minghao and Junhui to Renjun. Everyone has a different opinion, and it’s giving Yangyang a massive headache. Sicheng has to know the answer though. He lives with Ten and Kun.

He finds Sicheng eating a sandwich in the quad after midterms. They’re all going to the Mandarin-speaking students’ dinner at Kun, Ten, and Sicheng’s apartment that weekend. Yangyang really wants to find out the answer before he sees Kun and Ten again and has to ask them instead.

“Hey Sicheng!” Yangyang shouts. Sicheng turns and waves at him. Yangyang jogs over, drops his backpack, and plops down next to him. 

“How’s it going?” Sicheng asks. “How were your first midterms?”

Yangyang shrugs. “I think I passed all of them, at least. And Ten’s ghost friend only shows up during finals week.”

Sicheng smirks. “He’s been telling that story since before I was a freshman. I guess one of the older students he knows started that rumor and now Ten’s made it his mission to scare everyone new during the first dinner.”

“Eh. I’m not really scared of the ghost. I just don’t want to flunk out during my first semester.”

Sicheng polishes off his sandwich and pats Yangyang’s shoulder. “You’ll survive.”

Yangyang takes a moment to think about how to ask Sicheng about Ten and Kun. He decides to just bite the bullet and flat-out ask. Worst case scenario, Sicheng refuses to talk to him forever and he gets un-invited to the trio’s apartment forever. Yangyang would definitely miss the food, but figuring out exactly what’s going on between Ten and Kun is too interesting to not risk it.

“Are Ten and Kun dating?” he blurts out after a moment of silence.

Sicheng’s gaze is amused, but Yangyang can’t tell if that means anything specifically. 

“I don’t know,” Sicheng replies. 

“But you live with them,” Yangyang counters.

Sicheng shrugs, but he still looks very amused.

“You’ll have to ask them,” he replies cryptically. Sicheng gathers all of his things and stands up. “Anyways, I have a Modern dance class soon. See you this weekend.”

“See you,” Yangyang tries not to grumble.

Sicheng ruffles his hair, and Yangyang swats his hands away. Sicheng only laughs as he walks away. 

Yangyang and Chenle arrive at Kun, Ten, and Sicheng’s apartment last, because Chenle forgot to set an alarm for his nap and Yangyang was trying to solve a ridiculously hard calculus problem. Everything is already set up by the time they walk through the door and toe off their shoes. 

“Did you almost forget me, Chenle?” Kun teases, pinching the boy’s cheeks. 

Chenle whines and swats at Kun’s hands, but Kun laughs and pulls Chenle's ear lightly. 

“Can we eat?” Junhui complains. “I’m seriously hungry and you said we had to wait for Chenle and Yangyang to show up.”

Minghao shoves Junhui lightly. “Don’t be rude.”

Kun chuckles. “Yeah, let’s eat.”

Once again, it’s a mess of arms and elbows as everyone attacks the table of food. Yangyang manages to get a whole duck leg, and he’s pretty proud of himself. He sees Shuhua and Yuqi arguing over the last duck wing while Lucas tries to get Dejun to give him some of his fried rice. Kun sighs and informs Lucas that there’s more fried rice in the kitchen, and Lucas immediately heads for the kitchen. 

Yangyang gets a sense of deja vu when he finds himself back on the couch with Ten, Kun, Sicheng, and Dejun. This time, Kun’s half in Ten’s lap, and Yangyang sticks his feet onto Dejun’s lap as he perches on the armrest. Dejun frowns, but he doesn’t make Yangyang move.

Sicheng sits in the middle of the couch, unbothered as always.

“How’s everyone?” Kun asks conversationally. “Still alive?”

“Well, they wouldn’t be here if they were dead,” Ten retorts. 

Kun frowns. “It’s an expression. You should know since you have a degree in linguistics.”

“Which is why I also know sarcasm.”

“Very funny.”

“How long do you think it’ll take for them to remember we’re here?” Yangyang stage whispers to Dejun. 

Dejun laughs and Sicheng fails to hide a smile. Next to them, Kun and Ten continue to bicker.

“Well, you forgot to take out the trash again yesterday,” Ten says. 

“Like you can talk. Who did the dishes last night?”

“Sicheng did.”

“I meant to say the night before last night.”

“I did.”

“I’m pretty sure I did.”

“Oh my god, shut up.”

Ten leans over both his and Kun’s plates and kisses Kun. Dejun almost drops his plate. Lucas’ mouth is hanging wide open, and Hendery stares with duck bones poking out of his mouth. Sicheng continues to eat, but Yangyang’s pretty sure that he sees Sicheng grinning. The entire apartment is silent, and everyone is staring at Kun and Ten.

“I freaking knew it!” Junhui shouts when Ten and Kun break apart. “Yanan owes me dinner for a whole week.”

“You couldn’t wait for another week?” Yanan grumbles.

Chaos breaks out as people are claiming victory over bets and others still stare in shock.

“Told you you’d be the one to slip,” Sicheng says smugly to Ten.

Ten sticks his tongue out at Sicheng, and Kun sighs. 

“Two more weeks,” Kun groans. “Two more weeks and I would have won twenty dollars from Doyoung.”

“No but seriously, how long have you been dating?” Yangyang pipes up. 

Everyone quiets again. Yangyang suspects that some people had been betting on how long Kun and Ten had been together.

“Since May,” Kun replies. 

“Since Yuta’s graduation party,” Ten corrects with a wide grin. “We wanted to see how long it would take everyone to figure it out.”

Everyone goes back to settling bets. Off in their usual corner, Chenle looks confused while Renjun laughs next to him while repeating “You’re so dumb.”

“Wait a minute, who knew you were dating?” Hendery asks when everything settles back into the organized chaos that it was before.

“Yeah, how many traitors do we have here?” Lucas adds. 

Sicheng smiles smugly. “Only me, because none of you went to Yuta’s party.”

“The one party I ditch,” Lucas whines. “Sicheng I thought I was your favorite, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Kun and Ten bribed me with food. Besides, I wanted to see how long these two could go without one of them breaking.”

“I was going to tell everyone once I won the money from Doyoung,” Kun complains. “Ten, what the heck.”

Ten grins and presses a kiss to Kun’s cheek. “Sorry babe. You know how I end arguments.” His smile then turns mischievous. “Besides, now Johnny owes me fifty dollars, so Doyoung’s money is irrelevant.”

“For what?” Kun asks, startled. 

“He said I’d break during midterms because I'm 'needy and need attention' when I'm stressed according to him.”

Kun and Ten continue to discuss their friends' while Lucas whines to Sicheng about being kept in the dark. Hendery leaves to talk to Renjun and Chenle after saying “I need to re-evaluate my observations skills because looking back, you guys were hella obvious.” 

“Well, I guess you finally found out,” Dejun says to Yangyang. “Why didn’t you ask them directly?”

Yangyang frowns. “You knew that I was asking other people?”

Dejun smiles. “Word travels fast in this circle. Besides, I live with Lucas and Lucas knows everybody.”

“Huh,” Yangyang replies, not knowing what to say.

“Anyways, why didn’t you just ask them?”

“Um, the embarrassment? Besides, they were going to keep it secret anyway.”

Dejun laughs. “You’re cuter than you think you are. They probably would have told you and just sworn you to secrecy.”

“What does that mean?” Yangyang demands. He tries to furrow his eyebrows like Dejun often does to emphasize his point.

Dejun shakes his head and chuckles.

“I’ll tell you when you grow up,” he jokes.

Later that night, after Yangyang brushes his teeth, washes his face and flops into bed, he realizes that he’s already accomplished all of the goals he set for himself at the start of the semester. He’s finally found out the relationship between Kun and Ten, he’s serenaded Jaemin with his violin, and he and Chenle have pulled numerous pranks on their friends. He’s been going to the Taiwanese Student Association meetings. He's helping tabling during the next boba fundraiser 

Yangyang frowns to himself. The semester is only half over, and he needs some more goals so that he stays motivated to actually get through to finals. Sure, he could pull more pranks with Chenle, but the two of them have already run out of ideas that won’t make their friends hate them forever. Yangyang doesn’t want to join another club because he already has enough activities with the TSA. Besides, he needs something that isn’t related to school at all. 

He thinks back to Dejun’s weird comments during dinner. What did Dejun mean when he said that Yangyang was cuter than he thought? Yangyang had been told that he was cute, but what did Dejun actually mean?

Yangyang turned over and closed his eyes. There was no use in wondering about that now. He would make finding out what Dejun meant his new goal. And he was not going to ask Dejun first. That would definitely be too embarrassing.


End file.
